by Kent Hrbek
Looking Back
Some things never changed during my career. There was always someone saying that I had “Hall of Fame” talent and asking what might have been had I devoted myself to physical conditioning.
When I retired, naturally someone asked Tom Kelly if I had Hall of Fame talent. “I sure think so,” he said. My teammate, Gene Larkin, said some nice things, then added: “I just wish he had stayed in better shape, from a fan’s point of view. But that’s him.”
Geno’s still a close friend, by the way. The thing is, I understand all those comments. I just hope people understand me when I say I couldn’t be happier the way my career turned out. The day I popped out of my mom’s belly I had a gift that allowed me to hit a baseball. It just came natural. To me, that was something to be proud of, not feel bad about.
I was proud that I played the game hard and competed. I was proud that we played the game the right way and represented Minnesota well on and off the field. My shoulders were the first part of my body to go, and that was because I dived for balls on the hard turf of the Dome. It didn’t have anything to do with weight.
Sure, I wish I could have been in better shape. But that just wasn’t me. I was a throwback in a lot of ways, and I guess that was one of them. I’d have been a lot more at home having a beer and hot dog with Babe Ruth than working out at some gym with modern ballplayers who want to look like body builders.
Hall of Fame talent? Harmon Killebrew who sadly passed away in 2011, is a Hall of Famer and was a great guy. But did being a Hall of Famer make him any different than me? He got more money for his autograph than I did, but otherwise, we were never that different, as far as I can see. And what about guys like Bert Blyleven and Tony Oliva? If I had a vote, they’d both be in the Hall of Fame. Tony’s still waiting and Bert got in on his 14th year on the ballot. But does any of that make them any different as ballplayers?
And here’s the thing to remember with some Hall of Famers: Ted Williams never won a World Series. Harmon never won a Series. Ernie Banks never won a Series. A lot of guys who have plaques in Cooperstown never won a Series.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of two Series champions. And that, to me, was the ultimate. It was the reason I played this game. If I was a tennis player, I’d have felt different because that’s all individual. But baseball to me was a team game. You lived and breathed baseball every day from February through October with your teammates and coaches. You won together, you lost together.
To have your name on a championship trophy, that’s the only plaque that really mattered to me. And to win those championships in a small market like Minnesota—and in my hometown city—that makes it even more special. I walk around here today and people still smile because when they see me they remember 1987 and 1991. That’s what I played for.
Awards
If I’m not obsessed with the Hall of Fame, you can probably guess that I’m not overly concerned with individual awards. I can take them or leave them, although I would have liked to have taken a couple more during my career—namely a Gold Glove. That’s one thing that always eats at me. I took a great deal of pride in my defense, and I know if you talk to my manager and teammates, they’ll say I was a great first baseman who saved a lot of runs with my glove.
I honestly thought I should have won five or six of them. I took a lot of pride in catching the baseball, and I didn’t think there was anybody better than I was at first base. To this day, I still feel that there wasn’t anybody better at first base.
One of the best compliments I ever got from an opponent came from Dwight Evans, after he singled and was standing at first base with me. A lot of times those days they were sticking left fielders or third basemen at first base to get another bat in the lineup. I’d been a first baseman since ninth grade. Dwight said to me: “Hrbie, they can stick anybody at first base, but nobody can play it like you can.”
The truth is I’ve got one Gold Glove in my basement. Gary Gaetti won four straight Gold Gloves with the Twins (1986–89), and he gave me one of his. He told me that if I wouldn’t have caught all the shit he threw over to first base, he’d have never won one.
That’s pretty special, coming from a teammate.
And as long as we’re talking individual awards, I’ll admit it: I thought I should have won the Rookie of the Year in 1982. You look at the numbers, and I had a better year than Cal Ripken (.301 average, .363 on-base percentage, 23 homers, 92 RBIs to Ripken’s .264 average, .317 on-base percentage, 28 homers, 93 RBIs). And in ’84, when I was second to Willie Hernández, a reliever, well, all I can say is that he had a great year, but there are a lot of people who believe pitchers shouldn’t be MVP. They’ve got their own award: the Cy Young.
But I can live with that. I’ll ride off into the sunset with the two World Series.
The Biggest Honor
The Twins had a special day for me at the Dome in 1995. Before the game, they had a ceremony announcing that the team was retiring my number. My jersey, 14, is up on the outfield wall with Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva, Rod Carew, and Kirby Puckett. We’re the only five Twins who have ever had their number retired.
That’s probably the greatest personal honor I’ve ever had in my life. It’s an incredible feeling for me to walk into the Dome and see my number hanging there. And then you think about the other people whose numbers are out there with me. I know I’ve said this before, but I still think of this when I walk into the Dome: I used to pretend to be Tony-O while playing Wiffle ball in my backyard. Wiffle ball in my backyard. And now my number is hanging next to his on the outfield wall. Who’d have thunk?
If I go to a Twins game now with some buddies and their kids, or maybe their nephews and nieces, it’s fun to think that one day those kids will be telling their friends that they met the guy who once wore No. 14. It’s pretty awesome to think that when I’m 95 and walk into the Twins stadium, my number is going to be hanging on the wall.
The other thing that happened during the ceremony was just as special: My Twins teammates gave me a trophy for being a good teammate. That’s all I ever wanted to be: a good teammate to the guys I played with.
The night was a little emotional. But it’s hard to be emotional when you see your buddies and start talking about baseball and share stories. Pretty soon, it was just a party, back with my teammates, having fun, sharing all those old memories. There’s not a bad memory in the group—even the one where I busted my ankle chasing a kid around the clubhouse. It might not be the greatest memory, but it’s pretty funny and pretty stupid that I’d do something like that.
Heck, without that I might not have been Turkey of the Year.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Where’s It Heading?
SOMETIMES I WONDER IF THE TWINS will ever have another Kent Hrbek. Or whether anyone will. I’m not talking talent. I’m talking about a guy who grows up idolizing a ballplayer who played his whole career with his favorite team, and then became that ball player. That was me as a kid looking up to Tony Oliva. Both of us Twins for life.
When I think about the future of baseball, loyalty is the first thing that comes to mind. I know steroids and Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire’s Hall of Fame vote have dominated the headlines, but I think the biggest problem the game faces is loyalty, and that’s obviously linked to the huge amounts of money they throw at players.
You just don’t see guys playing their whole careers with one team anymore. If there’s one thing I’d like to see in the game, it’s that the guys have a little more allegiance to their team, a little more loyalty. I wish guys would get to know more about the city they’re playing in.
One of the things that made the Twins special in the ’80s was that a lot of the guys bought homes here and made the city their home. Guys like Kirby Puckett and Gary Gaetti became part of the community. When you win a World Series and you’re part of the community, it’s a whole different level of feeling and meaning.
I understand why it’s difficult to be loyal to your fr
anchise. If teams are going to throw huge amounts of money at players, what are you going to do? The game’s a little out of whack right now.
I don’t want to pick on anyone, but take a guy like Gary Matthews. Before 2006, he was a career .250 hitter who had never even hit 20 homers. He played with a Texas team in 2006 where he was surrounded by some other guys who could hit. And Matthews hit over .300 with 19 homers, and the Angels signed him for $50 million for five years. I understand why Matthews can’t be loyal to Texas, but where are the Angels coming from?
My Team
I’m a big fan of what the Twins have been able to do with a small market payroll. They’ve had some legitimate stars like Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, and Joe Nathan in recent years. But only Mauer finished his career with the Twins. It makes me wonder how they will be able to keep a nucleus of talent together when the Angels paid Gary Matthews $10 million a year in 2009. Matthews was a career .257 hitter who never finished above 30th in MVP voting.
It’s a funny game. At the start of 2006, people were wondering whether Michael Cuddyer could play in the big leagues. But he had one good year, became a supposed superstar.
The game’s changed a lot from 1981 when I broke in. That’s not that long ago, but it seems like a different era.
TK
I feel fortunate that I was able to play most of my career with Tom Kelly as my manager. TK was a throwback, too. His attitude about the game fit with the way I felt about the game, and I think we had a bond because of that. I can’t say we were close off the field, or ever hung out together very much. But I was always comfortable with TK because I knew the attitude he had about the game.
My manager, Tom Kelly, proudly holds the 1987 World Series championship trophy. I was fortunate to have played for TK because we shared the same respect for the game. Courtesy of the Minnesota Twins
His ultimate goal was to try to play the game hard and do the best you can. Pretty simple. But apparently it’s not so easy to do, because how many organizations are able to embrace that philosophy?
With TK, no one player was bigger than the game. He didn’t want guys who wanted to go out and put on a show. He wanted guys who cared about their teammates and put winning above everything else.
When Andy MacPhail was our general manager, he said it was sometimes difficult to add talent to our roster because TK put such an emphasis on the kind of people he wanted in his clubhouse. Some guys just wouldn’t fit in the Twins clubhouse, and from what I saw Ron Gardenhire retained a lot of that philosophy. Gardenhire managed the Twins for 13 years from 2002 through 2014 and won six division titles, so his system worked pretty well. He had a rough final four years with the Twins and was fired after the 2014 season. But somebody must think Gardy is still a decent manager, because the Tigers hired him before the 2018 season.
I’ll give you an example from when I played: When we were looking for a leadoff hitter, some writers thought Rickey Henderson, who was on the market, would be a perfect fit. I knew there was no way Rickey Henderson could be a Minnesota Twin, and if I ever needed that belief reinforced, it came on a winter trip I took with my wife to the Bahamas.
Putting On a Show
I’ve never understood ballplayers who have that air about them that they’re better than other people. I was fortunate enough to be good at a game that people cared about and enjoyed watching. I never saw it as anything more than that, and I never saw it as something that made me better than anyone else.
Sadly, there are some ballplayers who do. We were walking through the Casino at Paradise Island one winter, and here came Rickey Henderson. He was decked out to the max, with clothes and a gold chain, and he had about 15 people around him. I mean he was walking around like he was King Tut.
I was walking around in shorts and a T-shirt. I looked at him, bobbing around, leading a crowd of people, and I said: “You’ve got to be kidding.” But he had to put on a show wherever he was.
People like that didn’t play with the Twins. TK wouldn’t have picked up Randy Moss, and he would never have allowed Terrell Owens in his clubhouse. Terrell Owens’ whole persona is that he’s bigger than the game, bigger than his teammates. When you score a touchdown and you stop to sign your name on a ball, that’s not respect for the game. That’s a joke. Some little kid is going to try to do that, and that’s sad.
Kirby Puckett was one of the greatest players in modern baseball, but he never had an air about him or traveled with an entourage. Puck was just another guy in our clubhouse, and that was one reason our clubhouse was what it was. We didn’t have people who had that air about them. We were a bunch of ballplayers who loved playing the game.
I’ll tell you a guy TK would have in his clubhouse: Kevin Garnett of the Timberwolves. There’s a guy I admire for his loyalty to his team and his community. He just goes out and plays hard every night.
If you’re playing tennis, or an individual sport, you can go out and blow up your skirt to try to impress the crowd. But if you’re playing a team game, don’t go out and try to be bigger than your team.
You Cheat, You’re Out
I feel a lot more comfortable talking about loyalty and playing the game right than I do some of the other problems with baseball—steroids, for instance.
Our biggest division rival was the Oakland A’s, featuring the Bash Brothers—Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. They’ve both been implicated in baseball’s steroid scandal, and if it’s proven that they used steroids to beat us, I’d be angry. But I never heard anything about steroids, and never even heard anyone talk about them.
Of course we all knew Canseco and McGwire were big guys, but when we visited Oakland, they were always at the ballpark early, lifting weights and working out with their coach, Dave McKay. We’d see those guys walk across the field to lift before the A’s would take the field for stretching and batting practice.
Maybe I was just dumb, because I never suspected anything. But then my steroids were a Budweiser after the game. I ate Tylenol before games and drank Budweiser after. And never once did I suspect anyone else—with the Twins or other teams—was doing anything different.
Stimulants Available
Amphetamines were different. Guys took beans, greenies, amphetamines—whatever you want to call them. I’m told that in the days when Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva played, they left them sitting out in the clubhouse, and you could just walk over and get them whenever you wanted.
It wasn’t quite that open when I played. You knew the guys in the clubhouse who had them, if you wanted them. I’m not going to say who used them and who didn’t, but they were around. Just put it that way.
I tried them once. I got so wired and so goofy, I just said to myself that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. It was one day, and that was it. I went back to my pregame Tylenol. A cup of coffee was as much stimulant as I could take.
Personal Opinion
I take a fairly tough attitude when it comes to cheating. I guess my views probably go back to Pete Rose and his betting on baseball games. I loved Pete Rose to death, the way he played the game. He got more hits than anybody, and his hit total probably won’t ever be caught.
But the guy broke one of the biggest rules written on the walls of every clubhouse: DO NOT BET ON BASEBALL. Period. Pete Rose broke that rule. It’s too bad, but in my view, he never belongs in the Hall of Fame because of what he did.
I’m keeping an open mind on the steroid scandal until guilt is actually proven. Right now there’s a lot of talk, a lot of speculation, but we really don’t have solid proof on a guy like Barry Bonds. You look at him early in his career, and he was a little pipsqueak, and now he’s a huge guy. But you know what? I was a little pipsqueak when I broke into the big leagues, and all I did to get big was eat and drink beer.
So I’ll keep an open mind.
Modern Players
I don’t want to make it sound like everything about my era was the good old days. I honestly think the players today are better than we
ever were. I know for certain they’re in better physical shape, and as athletes, they can do more.
That may not extend to pitchers, because you can only throw a ball so hard or make it curve so much. But pitchers today do have one built-in advantage, I think. Before expansion began in the 1960s, hitters would see the same pitchers over and over again, and I think it’s easier to hit when you know exactly what the pitcher has. Now, with 32 teams and interleague play, you don’t get to see the same pitchers that often, and that’s tougher on the hitters.
I sometimes wonder if I’d even make the ball club if I were playing today. The guys today work out 11 months of the year to stay in shape. I was in shape to do what I needed to do. I could go from first to third, from second to home. But I wasn’t a guy who worked out 11 months a year, and I wasn’t the kind of athlete most guys are today.
Then again, it was different when I played than it was in the 1950s. People wouldn’t have worried about my weight if I had been playing in the ’50s. Guys didn’t work out year-round back then. In fact, when the season was done, they’d get a job selling cars or something. My first manager, Billy Gardner, went back to Connecticut in the offseason and worked in a meat-cutting plant.
That’s the era I broke in on. I’m a lot closer to that era than I am to the modern-day athlete. In that sense, I am a throwback. My weights a lot closer to the old-time ballplayers, too. What can I say? I’m just a guy who loves to eat, and that’s true to this day. I know I need to lose 50 pounds.
For a while Jeanie tried to make me low-fat meals, but I ended up eating twice as much.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Life After Baseball
Joy of Nothingness
I guess a lot of people have some sort of master plan when they retire. Not me. Do you know how many sunsets you see playing in the Metrodome? Well, that was my master plan: To be able to be somewhere where I could watch the sunset. And to spend time with my family.
